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Final Reflection Paper

OGL 321

Amanda Piotrowski

10/08/2021

Part One

After taking this class, I definitely have a more in depth understanding of a Project Manager role.

In my first few Organizational Leadership classes, I have learned the qualities of what makes a

good leader, what type of leadership styles there are, the leadership qualities that I carry, and

what ways I can improve to become a better leader. I have also learned the responsibilities of a

Project Manager and the definition of the role, other roles of team members, or stakeholders, and

the scenarios of real project manager stories/situations. I have learned what charts are used to

stay organized such as Gannt Charts, or a WBS and how to create them. I have incorporated my

learnings in my every-day life at my job as a Shift Supervisor at Starbucks, I feel like I have

learned a lot of my personality, which allows me to learn the best ways I can communicate, and I

try to communicate all the time but not by hovering. I trust my team but want them to know that

I am available for any questions and of course to help, but I try to keep my intuition elevated on

the more stressful days. I think what I struggled with in this class the most and am nervous about

the most if I were to graduate right now, would be the scheduling and staying organized when

creating the right charts. I am a hands-on learner so I just feel like when I struggle with

something, it may take me having to do it and experience it for real, to truly understand what I

am doing or how to adjust or learn for the next time, which scares me because I would like to be
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good at it right away. But I know everything is a process and if this is how I learn, this is how I

roll with it.

I feel like given my Starbuck’s experience and the experience with the Harvard

Simulations, I would say I most use the critical path approach to most of my work or projects. It

feels natural to me to prioritize the investment into important work first and rescheduling lower-

priority tasks. It is something I do without thinking and feels more like an instinct, this approach

seems to be working and it keeps everyone involved happy, mostly. For example, I feel like in

my experience with the Harvard Simulations there was always some type of trade off and for me,

the budget was something that felt impossible to keep by. I think on just one simulation I was

able to come in on budget and early on schedule, but the majority of the time, I sacrificed the

budget. Now, if this were a real project and I was working for a company and had real clients, I

don’t feel I would be sacrificing the budget as I would on these simulations. I just noticed that in

the simulations I was able to maintain high scores in the 600’s and 700’s even if I went over

budget. However, in the real world I feel like that it would be pretty bad if I could not stay in

budget on every project. In a real project I would do my best to communicate with stakeholders

on what is most important to them so I would know what to prioritize especially in an effort to be

proactive if any issues arise. Besides prioritizing what is important to stakeholders, it is

important to me to keep full communication with my team that way I know what is lacking and

can be on top of any small problems early. The last Harvard Simulation was eye opening for me

and helped me add this proactiveness to my leadership style because it is much wiser to plan and

prepare than be sidetracked over something that could have been prevented if I just planned an

extra step.
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Project Management skills are valuable, desired, and needed in today’s professional

world. What I love about majoring in Organizational Leadership Project Management, is that the

possibilities in professions are close to endless. There are so many careers that can benefit with

these skills. I never heard of Project Management until my mother told me about it and how it is

what her boss went to school for. She works as a Proposal Writer, and her boss manages the team

of proposal writers for their company. She encouraged me by telling me that it doesn’t mean I

have to go directly into Project Management right away, and that plenty of companies offer

positions based off this skillset. This intrigued me, because for a big part of my adult life, I have

had the hardest time sticking to a major. I have changed my major 3 times and have pro-longed

my college years longer than I would have wished for. I loved the idea of being able to do many

things with this degree. So naturally I hop on indeed.com and look at what type of opportunities

could be out there once I graduate. Of course, I find Project Management jobs, or project

management assistant jobs, internships, several types of management jobs, and writing jobs, all

in different types of companies with different subjects but with the right organizational skills, it

is all possible. Project managers make great leaders, so think of how many companies run based

off good leadership, there are several levels yet its all valued under the same leadership umbrella.

Leadership is valuable in politicians, educators, childcare, environmentalists, event coordinators,

religion, in the medical field, in non-profit organizations, basically all companies that carry a

team of people, or a goal that needs a team of people, needs a leader. I feel like my biggest

takeaway is understanding the value of this skillset and to always strive to improve upon them.

Communication is everything and holds such a high impact on the result of a project and the

relationships that are kept reaching the goals of the scope. I feel I have a good sense of how to

communicate with others and how to read people, in my every-day job I work with a variety of
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young personalities and sometimes it can be difficult, because it seems that everyday someone is

in some type of mood, and I try to work my way around or through them to make the workday

bearable for everyone. My approach is to be pretty straightforward, but sometimes with younger

adults, it can be hard for me to be sensitive when some employees simply do not want to work. If

that is the case, which seems to be often lately, I go straight into problem solving mode and try to

prioritize the important tasks to get done first before I leave my shift for the next supervisor.

Teamwork makes the dreamwork.

Part Two

In the beginning of this class, I was impressed to see we would be doing simulations with

the Harvard name. I mean it sounds fancy right? I have done other types of simulations in my

other Organizational Leadership classes, but none quite like this. I actually really enjoy

simulations in general and find myself getting competitive and excited when I get a good score.

In my opinion, I think that simulations are valuable for learning close-to real life situations in

project management and allows a more hands on feel especially in an online course. The Harvard

Simulations were great at compelling feeling in me to attempt again and again to beat my score

and my classmates score, I am proud to say I managed to stay in the top 3 or 4 out of the class, at

least that it what it looked like by the time I would call it quits. I really liked the aspect of being

able to see my classmates scores and then discussing what we did as a class to achieve those

scores.

My first piece of advice for a student attempting these simulations is, sometimes it takes

more than 2 attempts to understand how to do better, and that is ok. I feel like I learned better by

my 5th or 6th attempt, and gained a greater understanding of what to tweak, such as number of

employees, the schedule, the goal, the overtime, the meetings, the prototypes. I may not be the
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best at giving advice on these simulations, because I feel like even though these are fun to work

through and can definitely teach some lessons, they are still not real and not exactly what we

would do on a real project with more thorough communication. So, my advice I guess leans into

getting a high score.

My second piece of advice for being successful in these simulations, is to be prepared to

not always meet every expectation. Sometimes, or a lot of the time, staying within the budget, on

schedule, and keeping the team stress free, is not reasonable and at times seemed impossible. It is

okay to prioritize what is most important, and for me I felt like staying on schedule and not

stressing out my employees seemed to be the most efficient and successful for a high score. I

also noticed that even if I went over budget but finished ahead of schedule is when my score

would jump into the 700’s, that was in the earlier simulations when there was an option to

upgrade the printer model. It got a lot harder when producing the same product as the competitor

to gain a high score in the 700’s. In real projects I find this advice applicable, the only difference

is that in a real project, the ability to communicate with stakeholders must be considered in order

for this approach to work. Understanding what stakeholders want, what is most important to

them, and if there is any wiggle room in the budget, will be a big factor in keeping everyone

happy, especially if it is a tight schedule.

For my third piece of advice, having higher experienced employers is yes, costly, but for

a good reason. Every time I tried to use basic level experienced employees, it was much more

difficult to reach the project goals and would cost more money and we would be behind

schedule. I had great success using higher experience employees for majority of the scope of the

project, even when going slightly over budget. I would then try to even out the budget by doing
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extensive outsourcing when my team could handle it which would save costs and keep my team

from being bored.

Three pieces of advice on Harvard Simulations:

 Try more than 2 times to gain a full understanding on what works for the scope of the

project. It is ok to play around.

 Prioritize when scheduling. Being Proactive for unexpected events will allow quick

problem solving, and if the important things are getting done first, there is less to worry

about.

 Having a knowledgeable team will provide the right resources for a more a successful

project. If possible, carry a team with a higher level of experience and outsource when on

schedule, or ahead of schedule to help save costs.